"Are you committed to the truth wherever it may lead..."

The following is an excerpt that I transcribed from a debate between Robert M. Price and a Christian apologist about the resurrection of Christ. His words really spoke to me so I wanted to share them with the community. I have also posted a link below to the entire debate (video).

"I've often heard apologists boast that the resurrection of Jesus is the most securely established historical fact of all. More so than the existence of Napolean or the occurrence of World War II. And indeed they are right. It is simply because what establishes the certainty of the resurrection for them is their faith. The sheer will to believe. Its the kind of certainty that no abundance of facts about Napolean or news reels about Hitler could ever come close to substantiating. They know there is something wrong with this. They know it is arbitrary and they feel ashamed of it or they would never indulge in sham pseudo-intellectual pretenses asking the doubter to accept their faith on the basis of these intellectual points that had nothing to do with their own acceptance of evangelicalism in which they are in no position to evaluate competently anyway. It obvious to any fair observer that Christian apologists are engaged in pure spin like shameless spokesmen for some politician. They can in no wise bring themselves to evaluate arguments and evidence on their own merit because they fear they may come to doubt their faith in an ostensibly loving God who would none the less send them tumbling into the magma pit of Hell if they were to come up with a dissenting conclusion.

In the gospel of John, Jesus tells Pilot "whoever is on the side of truth hears my voice". I have always wanted to make sure I was first of all on the side of truth then I felt I should have nothing to be ashamed of come what may. If truth mattered to me more than anything else I might suffer for it but I should not go far wrong. I have suffered for it, no martyrdom, but for instance, humorously, I was an evangelical Christian apologist when I was the chapter president of the inter-varsity Christian fellowship at my school. Even when I single-handedly organized campus evangelism campaigns my fellow campus officers came to me in a body questioning my dangerous belief in "limited inherency". Once I decided I just could no longer pretend that evangelicalism had intellectual credentials at all, and said so, some old friends would simply pass me by without speaking. It didn't embitter me. I tried to bless those that cursed me and tried to maintain dialog with them as friends.

I have since then looked avidly for any glimpse of truth I could find. I'm a member of Saint Steven's Episcopal church in Goldsboro Notrh Carolina and of Minnesota Atheists. I love both. I feel no need for some single confining world view; some intellectual lock-down. Ask yourself who is in the position to open themselves to the truth wherever it leads. Someone like me who was willing to reject evangelical Christianity if it came to that, and it did, or someone who is so deeply invested in an enterprise entirely based faith. I believe that many in the audience tonight are generally open to reason, and as you experience that opening... you may be feeling the fearsome pangs of doubt. But do not fear. What your feeling is not the shattering of your amour, but rather the cracking of your eggshell. It is time to emerge into a larger and brighter world-view of mature independent thinking. It is a world of frightening uncertainties and ambiguities but that is the real world that adults live in, there is no other. And what an adventure, what a thrill it is to make one's way in it, and to make one's own sense of it. Are you committed to the truth wherever it may lead, or are you committed to a party line that you dare not question lest you wind up damned. I have no fear of that for I love the truth and perfect love casts out all fear."

That was a pretty good read. Thanks for posting. I have to agree that while I am an Atheist, I am 100% open to whatever the facts point toward. However, acceptance wouldn't automatically translate to worship. If some god is shown to exist, I will assuredly believe that that god exists. But, I would then have to examine the properties of said god prior to pledging my devotion to him/her. This is something many theists can not also say. Most are not open to even the slightest possibility that they are wrong. Anything that points otherwise is either a trick, trap, testing their faith, wrong or fabricated. Yet we are the ones accused of being close-minded...